‘Turkish surgeons are bloody wild!’: As Istanbul cosmetic clinic’s stunning transformations that make patients look ’30 years younger’ leave social media users speechless, we ask top doctors: are these kinds of results really possible?

A breathtaking before and after plastic surgery transformation has left social media users speechless after leaving a man looking decades younger after the surgery.

Pictures from a plastic surgery clinic in Istanbul, Turkey, in which a middle-aged man becomes unrecognizable after facial surgery is viewed by 37.3 million people on X, with commentators divided over whether or not the results could be real.

Social media user @D_Radiance, who posted the images to

The original Instagram post from plastic surgery clinic @estemedistanbultr claims that patient ‘Michael’ has undergone a combination of facial surgeries, from facelifts to nose jobs, also known as nose jobs.

But social media users have wondered if they are just being ‘cheated’ and joked that he has just ‘grown a new head’ or transformed ‘into his own grandson’.

MailOnline approached the Istanbul clinic for comment on the remarkable case – and a number of other similarly stunning makeovers on their page – but received no response.

The clinic’s Instagram post about ‘Michael’, which has 15.5k likes, claims the patient has undergone a ‘facelift, neck lift, lower eyelid blepharoplasty, upper blepharoplasty, buccal fat removal, rhinoplasty and hair transplant procedures .’

We spoke to leading plastic surgeons and asked ourselves: could such dramatic changes in appearance really be achieved by the surgeries they allegedly underwent?

They said they were “skeptical” but, intriguingly, refused to rule out the possibility.

Bristol-based plastic surgeon Dr Nigel Mercer, who specializes in facial reconstruction surgery, said the ‘skin quality’ of the after photos was suspect.

‘If you look at the texture of his skin in the previous photo, you can see that the man has either been a smoker or that he is quite old.

“In the after photo he has the skin of a 35-year-old and that is not possible,” he told MailOnline.

He added that facial hair conceals scars from a facelift, but suggests that the difference in the shape of his eyebrow implies that other surgeries or operations are involved.

Mr Mercer said: ‘His eyebrow shape before and after is completely different. This can happen to some extent with facelift surgery, but just looking at the difference between his upper eyelid and the third of his forehead is a huge change.

“His face is a completely different shape, and I can’t believe you can do that just by removing fat, which involves removing the fat pads on the cheeks to create a slimmer, more angular face.”

London-based NHS plastic surgeon Mark Mikhail said: ‘Even in a dystopian world where it was possible to do this (with surgery) they would have had to do more operations than they claim to have done.’

Comparing the incredible transformation to the 1997 thriller Face Off, he said the flawless skin, eye color changes and lack of scars are some of the big giveaways that these images are heavily photoshopped.

‘They say he’s had a facelift, but there’s no scar. With a facelift you have to make an incision around and behind the ear and as you pull the face back you end up putting the sideburn right next to the ear,” Dr Mikhail added.

‘Men usually have a gap between their ears that can disappear and he still has that in the after photos.’

Dr. Mikhail also believes that jaw surgery would have been necessary to achieve a more angular appearance in the after photo, which is not included in the Instagram post, and that his lower neck, which would not have been part of the neck lift, is also damaged. better skin quality, indicating that the images have been edited.

Another Instagram post from the same clinic shows the shockingly different before and after photos of patient ‘Miss Dilek’.

In the post, which has 26.5 thousand likes, the clinic claims the photos show the results after “two years of rhinoplasty, facelift and eyelid surgery.”

Social media users wondered if the post was a joke and others suggested she would need a new passport after such a transformation.

“These photos are vastly different, these are not the same people,” said Dr Mikhail.

“Even with the operations they said. The skin quality is completely different and her eyes are different colors,” he added.

Dr. Mercer is also “very skeptical” that the two before-and-after images are of the same woman.

‘She looks completely different, there’s no doubt about that. The main thing that makes us look old is our skin and the transformation of her skin is absolutely phenomenal,” he said.

In the first image the patient has brown eyes and in the second image she has blue eyes. But it’s not just the change in eye color that makes surgeons suspicious.

Dr. Mercer explains that it is difficult to compare the eye shapes because she is looking in opposite directions.

Although it is not mentioned that she has had lip filler, both Dr. Mercer and Dr. Mikhail point out the obvious difference in the shape and fullness of her lips.

“Her upper lip can only be done with a lip lift, but I can’t see any scarring from a lip lift,” said Dr. Mercer.

‘Her upper lip is only a fraction of the height it used to be. “If you do a lip lift right away, you lose the white roll of the lip, which is actually quite well shaped, and the lower lip is completely different,” he added.

However, it is the lighting of this image that makes it almost impossible to decipher whether it is the same person.

Dr. Mercer said, “Before and after, you should have the same lighting. Here are the after photos faded out. Madonna uses this on tour because the bright white light brightens all skin tones and absorbs all shadows.

“So first without makeup, and now then with makeup on, it could possibly be the same person. But it is very, very redacted.”

But Dr. Mercer warns that even if it is possible to achieve these dramatic transformations, these surgeries can carry great risk, especially if you travel abroad.

He said: ‘There are some very good surgeons in Turkey, but there is also a lot of important business practice where people are sold a conglomeration of things.

“It’s a relatively high-risk operation and it’s not something you can do by flying in, having surgery and then getting back on the plane to fly back.

‘If you get a lot of swelling in your face, you should not fly for at least three weeks to a month. Any problems, any infections or breathing problems should be treated before you come home.”